Brideshead, was it just a co-incidence that the 'French look' came around the time blokes were getting serious with girls?  I remember reading how skinheads moved from their bovver look to longer hair and fancier clobber because it was the prelude to getting engaged and so on.  The guys with the centre-partings and basketweaves tended to get the best looking birds at our school: the local comprehensive.  Only the really sexy, tarty types went for the guys wearing crombies and carrying rolled brollies.  Any thoughts on this?

Brideshead is a similar vintage to me. 

I kept the basic look but further education involved associating with students -in other words hippy types with no idea about clothes. They wore loon pants, greatcoats etc. So, although I never went down that route, my standards started to slip.

By 1973 work beckoned. The mohair suit was back in service but additional suits were wide lapel jobs. I always had decent shoes though. I never wore a pair of stack heels. I did not know it was considered a French look. I never needed to go up town to get that sort of stuff. The Squire Shop/Ivy Shop were a thing of the past for me by then.

I think Alex mentioned the piece I did for AAAC a year or two back.  Here is the link to that thread:

http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57062&highlight=skinhead

Cheers

Brideshead, out of curiosity did you and your friends also wear Doc Martens during 68/9ish or was it primarily proper shoes for you?

I remember finding that AAAC thread years ago when you started it and thinking you were too cool to be posting there, heh

Can you imagine lads nowadays popping in to have a chat with their tailor?  Paying for their suit week in week out until it was truly theirs?  We've lost something along the way.  Or am I just getting old and crotchety?

Can someone pick Nick Knight and Jim Ferguson up a bit?  Harringtons were first worn by suedeheads?  Were the guys he claimed to have seen a few years earlier simply a figment of Kevin Rowland's imagination?  Contradictions, forever contradictions!

When still with The Yardbirds wearing the look of '69 in '63-ish:

http://www.arch.mcgill.ca/prof/adams/arch350/fall1999/students/pgorrie/clapton.gif

(Not the best pic - There are others)

Does anyone have any comments to make upon the likely influence of 'Budgie' and 'Bronco Bullfrog' just about this time?  I know they were a bit apart, but will anyone own up to wearing floral shirts and ties or white cloggies?

I guess maybe it brings us back to the Simons/Kwintner split.  But I think it might also force a division between London - or some parts of London - and the rest of the country.  Skinhead met Roxy Music met Philly met 'Budgie' met Slade...  Guys with crops at our school went round with glitter on their cheeks and teddy boy socks. 
Best stick to the capital for coherence...

Ah, yes. I can see what you mean. Actually Mike Smith - keyboard/vocalist with the Dave Clark Five. No; I wouldn't have known either if I hadn't read the back of the record sleeve!

Staceyboy